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FOREWORD The 2021 Opinion Poll is our second poll during this COVID-19 pandemic. Health and medical research continues to be at the forefront of our response to the disease, as we race to vaccinate our population and the world, and learn how to deal with it in the meantime. It has also shaped the questions we have asked in this survey, as we seek to understand how COVID-19 has affected people’s attitudes to research, to Australian Government funding priorities and to donations for research. While health and medical research is always in the top 10 funding priorities for the Australian Government, it is perhaps no surprise that in a pandemic, funding for research has been elevated to Priority no.3, behind funding for hospitals and education. More than a third of Australians told us they think funding for health and medical research is more important now than they thought before the pandemic began. In other signs of the influence of COVID-19, many people are reporting being more interested in health and medical research than they were pre COVID, and this interest is affecting donation intentions. Nearly one in ten told us they already donate to health and medical research and are likely to donate more in the future, and nearly 15% told us they haven’t donated in the past but are more likely to do so in the future.
On other COVID related news, support for vaccines remains strong, as does the willingness of Australians to participate in clinical trials. Aged care was also a major issue in Australia in the last 12 months and we have evidence of strong support from the public for reform. More trained staff, modernising facilities and research are all popular options for improving the standard of aged care in Australia. Australians are also confident about contributing their opinions to direct funding for health and medical research although most remain uncertain how to do so. This is just a small selection of the findings in our latest Opinion Poll, which Research Australia has conducted annually since 2003, and I invite you to take the time to learn a little more about what Australians (and Australian voters!) think about health and medical research and its role in Australia’s economy and society.
Nadia Levin CEO and Managing Director September 2021
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The polling for this report was generously conducted by Roy Morgan Research, a Research Australia Member. “Roy Morgan is proud to partner with Research Australia on this important research”
Research Australia Opinion Polling 2021
Michele Levine, CEO of Roy Morgan Research
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